"Oh,because they live close to the earth,and therefore despise it."He pushed away his bowl of sour milk and lit a cigarette.We ate,solidly and seriously,until those seven and a half kilometres to Mindelbau stretched before us like an eternity.Even Karl's activity became so full fed that he lay on the ground and removed his leather waistbelt.Elsa suddenly leaned over to Fritz and whispered,who on hearing her to the end and asking her if she loved him,got up and made a little speech.
"We--we wish to celebrate our betrothal by--by--asking you all to drive back with us in the landlord's cart--if--it will hold us!""Oh,what a beautiful,noble idea!"said Frau Kellermann,heaving a sigh of relief that audibly burst two hooks.
"It is my little gift,"said Elsa to the Advanced Lady,who by virtue of three portions almost wept tears of gratitude.
Squeezed into the peasant cart and driven by the landlord,who showed his contempt for mother earth by spitting savagely every now and again,we jolted home again,and the nearer we came to Mindelbau the more we loved it and one another.
"We must have many excursions like this,"said Herr Erchardt to me,"for one surely gets to know a person in the simple surroundings of the open air--one SHARES the same joys--one feels friendship.What is it your Shakespeare says?One moment,I have it.The friends thou hast,and their adoption tried--grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel!""But,"said I,feeling very friendly towards him,"the bother about my soul is that it refuses to grapple anybody at all--and I am sure that the dead weight of a friend whose adoption it had tried would kill it immediately.
Never yet has it shown the slightest sign of a hoop!"He bumped against my knees and excused himself and the cart.
"My dear little lady,you must not take the quotation literally.
Naturally,one is not physically conscious of the hoops;but hoops there are in the soul of him or her who loves his fellow-men.Take this afternoon,for instance.How did we start out?As strangers you might almost say,and yet--all of us--how have we come home?""In a cart,"said the only remaining joy,who sat upon his mother's lap and felt sick.
We skirted the field that we had passed through,going round by the cemetery.Herr Langen leaned over the edge of the seat and greeted the graves.He was sitting next to the Advanced Lady--inside the shelter of her shoulder.I heard her murmur:"You look like a little boy with your hair blowing about in the wind."Herr Langen,slightly less bitter--watched the last graves disappear.And I heard her murmur:"Why are you so sad?I too am very sad sometimes--but--you look young enough for me to dare to say this--I--too--know of much joy!""What do you know?"said he.
I leaned over and touched the Advanced Lady's hand."Hasn't it been a nice afternoon?"I said questioningly."But you know,that theory of yours about women and Love--it's as old as the hills--oh,older!"From the road a sudden shout of triumph.Yes,there he was again--white beard,silk handkerchief and undaunted enthusiasm.
"What did I say?Eight kilometres--it is!"
"Seven and a half!"shrieked Herr Erchardt.
"Why,then,do you return in carts?Eight kilometres it must be."Herr Erchardt made a cup of his hands and stood up in the jolting cart while Frau Kellermann clung to his knees."Seven and a half!""Ignorance must not go uncontradicted!"I said to the Advanced Lady.
